


Outside looking in

by MinaB



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Case Fic, Character Study, Gen, Implied/Referenced Stalking, OFC-centric, Psychoanalysis, Psychology, Season/Series 05, at least that's how I saw it, ish, just a tiny bit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-24
Updated: 2017-09-24
Packaged: 2019-01-04 20:50:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12176349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MinaB/pseuds/MinaB
Summary: Maya Syracuse, psychologist, gets dragged into the lives of Sam and Dean Winchester and no matter how much she may want to not get involved with their very particular set of issues, she bumps into them and can't help, but try to help. But Sam and Dean have problems much harder to classify than even army veterans and she doesn't even know who they are. So how can she help?





	Outside looking in

**Author's Note:**

> I have a bit of this written out already, if this goes well, I'll add more chapters, if not, I'll leave it as a short one shot.

She hates walking back home after work – hates it to her bone marrow, to the beat of her heart. It isn’t fear, it isn’t paranoia – though she wishes it were sometimes. It would, perhaps, be easier then, it would have at least a finality – a solution.

She thinks this all day, from the first opening of her eyes – bleary black gazing at sickly yellow ceiling – to the final conscious thought. She is thinking of this now – sparkly green dress, high heeled shoes on – in this too loud for only 7 pm club.

The noise of the drums, the heady scent of the dance floor, the mass of grinding, sweaty people are driving her insane, making her stomach turn despite the usual joy she derives from coming here.

“Maya?!” a voice she’d never heard before calls her name. She raises her head from the cocktail she’s been nursing, meeting the gazes of two tall men. “Maya Syracuse?!” now her full name. Odd. Not many people would be interested in her – no one if she’s honest. The man’s gruff voice – the shorter one – sends shivers of worry though her. Who are they? What do they want with her?

“Yes?!” she screams over the pounding of the music and the chatter of people around them, watching them making way through the dancing mass to reach her. The confidence of the answer, screamed as it was, dies a swift death on her lips. They’re wearing suits … no one wears suits in the Shard, not even at 7 pm on a Thursday.

She takes the time between hem calling out to her and them reaching where she sits to really study them. One of them is really tall – too fucking tall, she thinks, jealous from her 5 ft 2 stature  - with longer hair than either herself or the other man and hazel-green eyes. She can’t help comparing his semblance to that of her childhood puppy. The other one is striking as well, but less clearly so – no mammoth height – with sharp, big green eyes and a general confidence to his every move, disrupted slightly by the awkwardness with which he navigates the club. Maybe he just doesn’t like crowded place? Who cares though?

“Hello? Dr. Syracuse?” warm hazel eyes meant to lure her in, to make him trustworthy, but more than 13 years as a psychologist have her on edge. She knows this strategy, she’s used this strategy before. She nods regardless. It’s not necessarily a bad strategy, it’s just vaguely manipulative – too emotionally coercive to make her comfortable – bad life experience has made her weary of this, in spite of deploying it herself.

A flash of gold – badges.

She thinks they’re feds, not cops, but why would they be here, at the Shard, and not meeting her at her office, with an appointment? Is it really that bad that they couldn’t wait? Is this about Gabe’s sudden absence from their sessions?

“Is there a problem?” she tries for professional, but the dress and the club don’t do her any favors right this moment, at 7:30 pm on a Thursday night. She’s been here for about an hour now, she’s tipsy – not yet drunk but on the way there surely – and she has her work clothes in a bag underneath the bar, having changed on the ride over, with no deodorant since, like a fool, she’d forgotten it home. All in an effort to avoid going back home tonight. She’d hoped someone would seem interesting to her – or at least she interesting to them – and take her out of here. Her patience is running thin at this point  too, her 10 am appointment having drained away most of it.

“Not exactly. Are you aware that two of your patients have gone missing in the last week? With a least six more in the previous month?” the tone of no nonsense from the shorter man has breath stuttering in her lungs and fear clogging her brain waves, flashing sharp, disjointed images before her eyes. She was aware that some of her patients hadn’t returned to therapy, but she’d assumes they’d canceled, no needing or wanting her help anymore – it happened more often than people cared to admit. People usually came to her if a family member or friend more or less forced them too due to the severe nature of their problems, but they just gave up after a bit since it wasn’t what they themselves wanted and she let them. After all, her job is to listen to her patients and help them, not to fulfill what the patient’s family thinks they need. She isn’t there to force them to open up if they don’t want it, so she’d assumed Morris Freem had cancelled and would have assumed the same had she not known Gabe personally. But even still, Gabe’s case was more a local police thing, right? Some robbery gone bad or something?

“No offense agent, but can I ask for some names?” she tries to keep her voice steady, but it shakes nevertheless. No amount of pretending to be in charge would be able to hide the very real fear in her heart. “Also, we should speak somewhere more private. Perhaps a bit quieter at least?” Maya does not like this one bit, but she’s dealt with enough police cases to know how to act in this situation.

“Agents Burton and Hammett.” the tall one says, introducing himself and his partner, the other one looking grumpier than before, scanning the club swiftly and flashing her more of a grimace than a smile of acknowledgement. She could be mistaken, but now that they are closer and she sees them better, she thinks there might be a resemblance there – family of some kind -  but that can’t be, right? No one would allow family to work together in a police-like environment; it’s the same rules as medics not being allowed to operate on family – too much emotional involvement. She likes this less and less by the second.

“Dr. Syracuse?” he calls out to her again, gesturing to one of the private areas of the Shard, She nods, but not seemingly to be able to move her feet, she dawdles there a few minutes longer.

“Lady, people could be dead, could you maybe follow my partner sometime today?”

She startles, the deep voice – aggravated – shaking her out of her stupor. With a mumbled “sorry” she begins walking.

Once the music has lessened in volume and they’ve sat down, the two agents begin telling her about the case, the disappearances. She listens as intently as she possibly can, used to these kinds of scenarios, and yet icy tendrils of dread grip at her heart. They keep the explanation short, with the caveat that they’ll come by and talk more to her during office hours. They do, however, warn her to be careful as all that the victims had in common was their connection to her. She tried to swallow back the wave of nausea that the guilt causes when she thinks that maybe whoever is targeting her patients is really trying to get to her. God knows there are enough suspects there – her ex not withstanding – but before she can whirl herself into a panic, she draws in a deep breath and calms down.

The conversation dies down after that and, to distract herself, she falls back on her gift – reading people. In her defense, it was the reason she went on to become a psychologist and not, say, a robber though try as she might, most often it ended up causing her more trouble than it was worth. She wishes she could turn it on and off like a light switch, but she hasn’t been able to do that ever – not even when she was a child and she first became aware she was reading far more into people’s actions than others. It wasn’t like she was some miracle child genius or something like that, there were a ton of people with the same ability, it was just that she had put it to use in a department that could benefit from it more.

Since she can’t give them any answer tonight, not without her case files. Agent Burton grumbles under his breath when he turns back to the club, looking over the drunk teenagers that have made their way in. 9pm. She should be heading home soon. Agent Hammett smiles when he sees her get up and keeps the smile warm as he also turns to look at the scenes inside the main part of the Shard. But his smile has lost its edge – covering the same disapproval she sees so plain in the features of his partner. Burton makes a joke about the crowd that she misses almost entirely, but still finds herself surprised by the sharp disapproval of Hammett – Hammett who’s still hiding his displeasure at the drunken behavior of those in the club. She can’t figure out why – why he appears so understanding towards complete strangers, but so outright in his disapproval of his partner’s antics. Not that it was any of her business really. They weren’t her patients, but she figured that if you worked together like that, then you had to at least get along right? Was she misreading the situation? Was Hammett just playing up his expression to Burton? Was she getting to drawn into this? The answer to the last question was a definite yes, but she didn’t stop. Instead she looked at them carefully, paying more attention than she’d had before.

Burton was uncomfortable in the club, that was clear, but it wasn’t that he judged the people there, more like he wasn’t sure what to do with himself. His shoulders were hunched, his hands strictly into his pockets, his eyes darting from one direction to another, never losing focus of whatever it is he’s looking for. Hammett in comparison never takes his eyes off of her, not once. He sometimes switches from staring directly at her to a subtler look, eyes darting around the club, before without fail settling back toward her. Clearly they’re experience, the way they hold themselves makes that abundantly clear to her, and yet… There’s something not quite right about them. She’s not sure what, they don’t seem to be out of place and they sure _act_ FBI, but she doesn’t buy into it for some reason. Could they be lying? Why? What would they have to win from it?

Maya remembers one of her exes, Sandra, having had trouble due to her detective work. She would come home drained and carrying the weight of whatever case she was working on with her. It was the reason they hadn’t worked out. Maya hadn’t yet been so focused on her work and she hadn’t been able to understand how someone could be so consumed by what they did that they neglected their lover. Now however, she gets it, intimately, and regrets not having been there for Sandra. Maybe she should give her a call? They do talk online a lot, they remained friends.

Agent Burton moves through the crowd carefully, but with a focus she had only ever seen in the few army men and women she’s had under her care, while Hammett chooses instead to hang behind and wait her out to leave as well. She sees the ease of their interaction – they work together well – but also the strain on their relationship. Why? Why is Burton so uncomfortable with people being behind him? _Or rubbing against him it seems._ She notes as she sees him flinch out of the way when a drunk young man dances backwards into his space. She needs to stop this. She knows nothing of these men, she should be thinking about the case instead. And yet thinking about the case means heading back home and she abhors that more than anything else. They head out in separate directions once outside the club, the agents driving off into a black muscle car. She didn’t know the FBI could use their home cars. Maybe things changed?

The walk back home has her on edge as always, the brightly lit alley doing nothing to ease her tension, no matter how many times she’s passed through it or how visible everything is. It still fills her with an unnerving sense of being watched, though she knows nothing is out there.

* * *

 

Morning comes as a relief this time, if only until she leaves the house. Usually the unease of walking home follows her well into the night and then returns with dawn, but that isn’t the case now. She left the odd feeling outside, her mind overtaken with sorting through the hints and pieces of personality she’s witnessed in the two agents the night before. She’s glad to be rid of it. She can never rest easy when it is around her. Weirdly enough, at work is the only place where she can escape it. Maybe that’s why she’s been holing herself up in there. It’s back when she leaves the house for work though, twisting around in her chest and suffocating her.

She reaches the office just as the agents do as well and then it’s off to the races. Working a case like this, with a serial disappearance, is complicated especially since most of her case files are heavily restricted. So much so, that she’s afraid she won’t be able to tell the agents anything they might be able to use in their investigation, but then she hears their questions and frowns. What kind of questions are those? She’s never heard anything like that. What is this case?

She answers to the best of her abilities and it’s good, good that she can focus on the patients that are missing rather than the agents. The odd feeling of familial bonds between them has returned with a vengeance now that she has sobered up. Hell, it has grown in intensity. Their every interaction screams family, the way they work so in synch with one another. It could, of course, be a really good partnership, but they don’t look to be old enough to have a decade’s worth of working together to fall on. They look young enough for this to be their first case, especially the taller man. They get access to some of her files - very old patients that have also never come back – files from over a decade ago that have been previously disclosed to investigation due to consent from family members. Again come the odd questions, stranger this time around, but surer as well. Clearly they have an idea about who’s done this. Could it be a serial killer? One that’s been following her for over a decade? That seems ridiculous to her, far-fetched and fantastical like some book plot where the main character is constantly in peril. The kinds of books she refuses to admit she reads.

The agents leave in about an hour or so, with a box full of case files to study. They thank her for her time. Burton ruffles his hair and turns warm green eyes to her for maybe the first time ever in the short time they’ve known each other and apologizes for his behavior last night and reassures her that they’ll solve the case. It works as intended. She’s put at ease by the his demeanor alone and believes his words – the same kind of ease she’d got from agent Hammett last night, but working in a different way. Hammett’s way of handling her made her feel like she’s in the hands of professionals, in hands that are used to doing whatever is necessary to solve the case. Burton’s way is more subtle, but just as effective. He’s softer, he’s gentler when handling her obvious worry, but no less secure in what he – they – are capable of. It’s odd in a way, the way their personality comes out through their words and actions. To anybody – hell even she herself had that impression last night – Hammett would seem the softer one, the… _kinder_ one and Burton the harsh, hard-ass agent. It’s the other way around apparently. She likes it. It’s a different dynamic than she’s ever expected.

It’s on her way home she finds out about Sam and Dean Winchester as they blast the _thing_ that is dragging her away with quick, sure movements and save her life. They reintroduce themselves as Hamm- _Sam_ bandages her scratched to hell arm and Burt- _Dean_ checks to see whether the thing that attacked her is dead. Turns out she was right, they are family – brothers. Turns out she was wrong as well. It’s not who would want to be FBI, but who would choose to be a ghost hunter. She watches them leave from her from door, shivering still from shock and her mind whirling with information 50 miles an hour. She should see a psychologist herself she thinks as she falls asleep that night in her bed, but who would believe her? Would anybody believe her if she told them a _Black Dog_ – a monster that can change shapes that used to be her very kind neighbor who’d had a crush on her – had been following her and killing who they’d thought was a threat to get together with her? How does one even begin to explain any of it.

It’s the next morning that she decides what she will do. Sam had given her a phone number to both himself and Dean but also to a man named Bobby Singer. She’d been right, no one would believe, unless they already knew about it. And she was a licensed psychologist. If she, who’d come out fairly unscathed from this, had a hard time with this, she could only imagine what an actual hunter would go through. Maybe she could help? Maybe she should try.

Dr. Maya Syracuse, psychologist, packed herself a bag that very morning and left for Sioux Falls.


End file.
